Real Music Prelude

[Spoken Verse: Amena Brown Owen]
I was born of tambourine and hand clap
Foot stomp on old wooden church floors
I learned to love a sound that came straight from James Brown
But not the godfather of soul, I'm talking about James Brown my father who's soul is earth, wind and fire
Whose eyes are shining stars for me to see
Earphones bigger than six month old me
Placed around these little ears, so I could hear a slice of what my life could truly be
My grandma used to say your daddy could play piano by ear. Which meant his heart could hear what his fingers could interpret. See his mother taught him to play in the key of G
And he passed that blessing on to me, but no matter how many times old Mrs. Patterson reminded me to practice I just couldn't focus on the keys
So I left the piano notes alone I picked up a pen and a microphone. I learned to live by ear listening to the bass blasting from my twenty dollar boombox like ripples of water through the floor of my bedroom
The only keys I pressed were record and play, so I captured my favorite song off the radio. This poem it's for the quiet storm, for the request line
For the first time I understood the magnitude of shh don't talk just listen
My first real date how we slow danced to All My Life with his hands around my waist
For the old holiness hymns my grandmother taught me. From my mom, Buy Me The Voice first LP
When I believed Hakeem would marry me
This poem is for Trey who taught me that black fought called me a queen named Amena
For that old bootlegger set of the Fugees and my first taste of boogie for my college roommate who lent me six of Coltrane's greatest hits
And I never did give her back that CD
This poem is for Daniel with the brown freckles, who sang me the words to Under the Bridge
One day I'm gonna have kids and they're going to look up at me and say, mommy where do samples come from?
I wanna sit them down. I wanna tell them the truth that real music is this special dance with instruments and lyrics do and one day baby you'll find somebody special
You'll do that dance to I want them to listen to Coltrane in the wind
I want them to know that a .45 is a more loaded weapon that needles and records go perfect together and maybe in life i'll only get my sixteen bars but I hope my eyes are shining stars for them to see because I wanna teach them how to live by ear and play in the key of G